Becoming a Teacher II

Rudolf Flesch was strongly opposed to a technique that was in use in some places in the early 1950s called the “look and say” method in which students learned to recognize whole words. He felt that students were not being taught to link letters with sounds and turn the sounds into words. He felt that looking at the context in which the word was used in was counter productive.

What was called phonics became the method of preference in most schools for the next 30 years or so even though research and professional opinion didn’t support it as the only method to use it became just that! I was beaten by the phonics stick myself and now facing the prospect of doing what I hated so much to my own students.

The trouble was that learners associated reading with boring and pointless drill and practice and writing with grammar drills and red marks on their papers. There was no reading and writing but rather the so-called preparation to be readers and writers. Contrary to Flesch’s contention, Johnny could read but he chose not to. Much the same problem that we have with most adults today and the same is true for writing.

Are the generations of kids hammered with Flesch’s phonics better readers today? Nope! Publishers loved the programmed instruction and made a fortune peddling their reading series. Textbook authors and quasi researchers published volumes to support what they were doing…lining the pockets of the publisher. The popular press was full of stories espousing their beliefs. True researchers who had no vested interest in selling books continue to advocate for an alternative but their voices we drowned out by the deep pockets of the book selling industry.

Those who advocated for more novels and books (literature based) in the hands of children didn’t have a chance either. The publishers wanted to sell their volumes of scripted lessons that only included brief reading passages that the kids seldom got to even read.

A movement called whole language was quietly gaining strength in the background. It advocated for much more reading and writing and the teaching of skills in the context of the student learning and not in isolation as advocated by the phonics approach. I was drawn to it because it made sense to me. Who could learn to golf or play tennis or ride a bike if they never got to actually do it because they were always practicing the sub skills? Thus, came the name, whole language, and teaching from the whole to the part. That is pretty much how we learn everything else. Oh, there is some instruction that usually goes on before hand but the real learning doesn’t really happen until the learner tries the activity.

Teachers didn’t have to think. They dutifully read the script in the teachers’ manual to their three reading groups and didn’t question the fact that it didn’t take any training to do that. When it is tightly controlled like that there is no decision making on the part of the teacher. Today we know that good teachers make instruction decisions that impact student learning all the time. We now train teachers to do just that. (To be continued)